


The Sun; A Little To The Left

by AvantGardener



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Early Mornings, Memories, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Motherhood, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 01:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13225713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvantGardener/pseuds/AvantGardener
Summary: Debbie is reminded of her beginnings, and why she won't return to them with Frances





	The Sun; A Little To The Left

**Author's Note:**

  * For [orosea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orosea/gifts).



In the morning, Debbie is seldom woken with anything other than the shrill cry of her child. The only thing she could think as she rubbed her eyes and slid out of bed was, at least she wouldn't need to invest in an alarm clock. She slid on a purple tank top, with a greasy stain under the right breast, and went to aid Frances. 

She opened the door, and Frances stopped. She checked the crib to see the cooing infant she knew and loved. Well, at 5 am, love was a word she used with some spite. Still, Debbie scooped her up, cradled the baby in her arms, and rocked her gently. She thought briefly as to where she had learned to do this whole 'mom' thing so well, but she couldn't think it up. Debbie cozied up to the idea she had always known, some maternal instinct she'd been born with. She stepped over the boozed out waste of garbage her own mother resided within, as she went to make Frannie breakfast, and herself a sandwich. As she got her ingredients out of the fridge, she thought about her mom.

She didn't really know whether or not Monica or Fiona fit the bill. Biologically, Monica was her mother, but only technically. In terms of parenting, and affection (with some strings attached) Fiona took the prize. Monica really was someone she knew only through being mention. Fiona and Lip, in the roar of a midnight party, often would skip over Monica, using passing terms that did not paint the prettiest picture. When Fiona was alone, crying at the kitchen table, Debbie knew it was about Monica. Or Frank. Really, what they had left Fiona with.

Fiona. The name inspired really mixed feelings with Debbie. On the one hand, Debbie knew she wouldn't be the person she was today without her guidance, but it was hard to elicit sympathy for a woman who wallowed in it. Fiona never really got past having her siblings become her children. Debbie wanted to say that Fiona had a moment of shining altruism, that she had done something for Debbie in a moment that did not have some kind of a prerequisite, some outer-based issue that did not tie itself to Fiona like an anchor. But she couldn't, and that was the issue. Fiona was a parent out of circumstances, never out of love. Debbie still had trouble swallowing the realization, after years of coming to the conclusion. The one real parent she had, looked at her like a responsibility. Debbie was too young to possess the attachments of sisterhood to Fiona. She had not known a Fiona not riddled with strife. Such is the Gallagher way, though. Always under some kind of inescapable rock.

But it wasn't fair to say Fiona was a woman defined by her responsibility. Fiona was not broken. Debbie knew by the wild look of excitement Fiona would get from seemingly mundane things, like that Alaskan fishing show on one of the few channels we got, or a song on the radio. She persevered, using bits of the past she could assuage pieces of a joyful life out of. As far as ways of getting out of bed in the morning, Debbie couldn't look down on that way of living without turning the gaze at her own life. 

She tripped over Monica, and tumbled to the ground, lunchmeat slapping on the ground like pancakes. Monica stirred, and Frannie laughed, as Debbie grumblingly picked herself up off the floor. 

Monica, brushing over her character rather quickly, was as crazy and jagged as a broken chandelier. Monica stepped in and out of people's lives like hopscotch, dipping her fingers in the pie as she slammed it down on the floor, and smeared the juices on your carpet. She was bipolar, and dangerous, and inexplicably attached to a family she clearly hated. Monica was a bitch, much like the girls at school were bitches. sneaky and quiet, with a sickly sweet exterior that was so fake you could pick it out of a police lineup. Debbie hated her, with good and logical reasoning. Not like Debbie needed it. Monica also had children young, a gene that she had clearly passed along to Debbie, that intense desire to bring children into the world.

She looked at the sleeping woman on her floor, a frantic blonde mess in a parka. She really was a Gallagher through and through. 

Debbie stopped and smiled. She cut her sandwich in half, wrapped the half in her napkin, and snuggled in her mother's clutched fist. She knew that they were helpless to escape themselves. Gallagher's always had that hamartia. They couldn't stop looking back with their middle fingers at the sun long enough to see that all their potholes were avoidable if they just kept their eyes on the road ahead. And Debbie had spent so long living like that. Blaming the world for her problems, her obstacles, and qualms. But as she looked into the eyes of her daughter, with a smile on her face, eyes shining with that wild Gallagher mischief, she knew that that sun would set. And for the rest of her family, it would rise, as it always did, burdening them as it does. For Debbie, the sun, so often bearing down on her like everybody else, gave her enough time to look up and notice, that it had always been a little to the left.


End file.
